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Focusing on the negative is good when it comes to batteries
Imagine not having to charge your phone or laptop for weeks. That is the dream of researchers looking into alternative batteries that go beyond the current lithium-ion versions popular today. Now, in a new study appearing in the journal Science, chemists at several institutions, including Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech for NASA, as well as the Honda Research Institute and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have hit on a new way of making rechargeable batteries based on fluoride, the negatively charged form, or anion, of the element fluorine.
"Fluoride batteries can have a higher energy density, which means that they may last longer -- up to eight times longer than batteries in use today," says study co-author Robert Grubbs, Caltech's Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry and a winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. "But fluoride can be challenging to work with, in particular because it's so corrosive and reactive."
In the 1970s, researchers attempted to create rechargeable fluoride batteries using solid components, but solid-state batteries work only at high temperatures, making them impractical for everyday use. In the new study, the authors report at last figuring out how to make the fluoride batteries work using liquid components -- and liquid batteries easily work at room temperature. "We are still in the early stages of development, but this is the first rechargeable fluoride battery that works at room temperature," says Simon Jones, a chemist at JPL and corresponding author of the new study.
[...] The key to making the fluoride batteries work in a liquid rather than a solid state turned out to be an electrolyte liquid called bis(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)ether, or BTFE. This solvent is what helps keep the fluoride ion stable so that it can shuttle electrons back and forth in the battery. Jones says his intern at the time, Victoria Davis, who now studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was the first to think of trying BTFE. While Jones did not have much hope it would succeed, the team decided to try it anyway and were surprised it worked so well.
Room Temperature Cycling of Metal Fluoride Electrodes: Liquid Electrolytes for High Energy Fluoride-Ion Cells (DOI: 10.1126/science.aat7070) (DX)
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday December 10 2018, @01:08PM (2 children)
According to the official stats for my country less than half of households actually have a garage to pull into, for the US (e.g. https://archives.hud.gov/news/2010/pr10-138.cfm [hud.gov] ) it seems it is higher at 66%, but even so there is no way that you can get "almost everyone" out of 66% of households.
This is the biggest problem with EV infrastructure - and it is likely to be further biased against due to many of those without garages probably being in dense urban environments where EVs would be more useful. For performance parity, electric needs to get to the point where it is fill-up-while-you-wait (if it takes a bit longer than petrol or gives less range that may be fine, but you need correspondingly more charging stations than petrol pumps, and they need to be as accessible to all as petrol pumps) OR you need park-and-charge at most/all parking spaces, including on-street. I don't see either of those happening, I think it is more likely that the populace will be forced into the less performant option - it's been done with incandescent light bulbs.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Tuesday December 11 2018, @02:21AM (1 child)
Those without garages are likely to end up with power outlets in their apartment/townhouse/condo parking spaces, even if it's just (in the US) 120V/15A, or there will be power outlets at their place of work (common in CA at the moment). Solving the problem of adding electrical outlets isn't rocket science, and the lack of electrical outlets doesn't need to be permanent.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday December 11 2018, @03:06PM
Eventually, maybe, but that is essentially what I said with "most/all parking spaces".
With most apartment complexes, even if you have "your" own parking space you won't have the right to put a charger in it, so it'll have to be put through the management and probably done building/complex wide - which is not rocket science but it is a large infrastructure job and may well require upgrading the main grid connection to the building/complex.
If you only have on-street parking (which I do, and I am not alone there are many many others - if there weren't I'd be able to park outside the house :-) ) then it means local council / municipal installations along every street where there is parking (since you don't get to choose where you park, we frequently end up >100yds away from house), still not rocket science (after all, they manage to do street lights) but not cheap either. Then you've got the problem of what outlet/connector type since there are many standards, and how to charge for the charge, for which there are many "standards" also. Solving all that becomes a politics problem rather than a rocket science one.